[FIXED] Can a layout manager spawn several JPanels?

Issue

I have to build a rather large form with many controls. The controls are divided in basic controls/settings and extended controls/settings. The user can decide if he wants to see only the basic or both basic and extended controls.

I've dropped all extended controls onto their own JPanel so that I can easily switch between the two views by showing or hiding this panel.

Currently I'm using GroupLayout and what happens is that the controls on different panels are not aligned:

Label aaa:     Text field
Label a:       Text field
Label aaaaaa:  Text field
----------------------------
Label b:    Text field
Label bbb:  Text field
Label bb:   Text field

Unfortunatly I found now way to "synchronize" the layouts of the two panels (except using AbsoluteLayout and fixed control coordinates)

• Is there any way to achive this?
• Is my whole design flawed?

EDIT: If it is possible I would like to keep the GroupLayout manager.

Solution

As far as I know, no Swing LayoutManager (from JRE or open source) can span several panels.

I am currently working on such a feature (which I called "layouts synchronization") for my DesignGridLayout project, but it is not something easy to implements (I have started about 2 weeks ago and I still don't see exactly if and when I will get to something interesting, but I still have high hope for it;-))

One option you could check would be to add all components to the same panel (with just one GroupLayout then) and hide/show them based on user's selection. Hopefully, GroupLayout will adapt the size to the situation (after calling pack()).

If GroupLayout behaves well, then it would just be a matter of calling pack() each time after user changes his selection to show/hide extended fields.

Else you would have to manually set the size of your panel every time the user changes his selection.

Answered By - jfpoilpret
Answer Checked By - Katrina (JavaFixing Volunteer)